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Report: Airbus signs A320 reengining agreements

Airbus has, within the past week, signed agreements with two engine makers, laying the groundwork for re-engining the A320 single-aisle airliner, FlightBlogger reported Thursday.

I had heard, but not verified, that Airbus reached such a deal with engine maker Pratt & Whitney. FlightBlogger reports that Airbus also has an agreement with Pratt competitor CFM International.

“(M)ultiple industry sources say that this step is more technical in nature,” FlightBlogger said. “The agreements are aimed at formally establishing specifications, performance and fuel burn requirements for such an engine, rather than any new A320 version’s commercial viability. Additionally, the sources add that the agreement is a clear signal of the seriousness by Airbus to re-engine the A320.”

Airbus, Boeing and engine makers have made no secret of their discussions regarding single-aisle re-engining, and several analysts have predicted that this year would see announcements of A320 and 737 re-engining to deliver more efficiency to airlines and compete with upstarts such as Bombardier’s CSeries, Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation MS-21 (MC-21 in Cyrillic) and China’s Comac C919. The CSeries and MC-21 will use Pratt’s PurePower 1000G engine, while the Comac has a deal for CFM’s LEAP-X engine.

When reached recently, Pratt spokeswoman Katy Padgett told me: “We’re in discussions with all of the aircraft manufacturers about the benefits of the PurePower engine, but at this point the extent of those discussions is not something we can publicly comment on.”

Both Airbus and Pratt declined to confirm or deny agreements to FlightBlogger, while CFM denied it had a legal agreement with Airbus.

Airbus and Boeing have no choice but to re-engine their single-aisle families, according to analyst Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at Teal Group.

“At this point you’ve got three non-Airbus and Boeing platforms offering this new generation of engine technology,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that all three will get to market, but still they represent leverage against Airbus and Boeing to do the same thing rather than get left behind.”

The risk for Airbus and Boeing is that their customers will drop orders for the existing A320s and 737s to wait for the new ones, Aboulafia said. He said this might be a good time, given the continuing global slump, to suck up that loss and get new technology ready for when the economy picks up.

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